


As I Recall

by missbeizy



Category: Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: M/M, RPF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-14
Updated: 2014-12-14
Packaged: 2018-03-01 08:57:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2767259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missbeizy/pseuds/missbeizy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sean remembers his time in New Zealand.</p>
            </blockquote>





	As I Recall

I remember what he told the press afterwards. When all the documentaries and interviews were published in the aftermath of the movie’s success. It was funny, actually, hearing him talk about meeting me. 

“I met him about four or five days before I flew to New Zealand for the first time. He was getting his wig fitted; as I needed to get mine fitted. I went to this hotel, and we kind of crossed paths in the lobby. Obviously we both knew who [the] other was. And we kind of stopped and looked at each other, and we just ran and gave each other a massive hug—and that was the first time I ever met him. It was this instant connection because we knew what we were about to embark on together.”

Funny, because the moment was something very private. And the way it translated into an answer to the question “So what was it like meeting Sean Astin for the first time?” was very public. 

I remember nothing of the day but seeing him from across the hotel lobby. He was all cream topped with chocolate, dressed in black and wearing sunglasses. He had a few of his people with him, but he’d left them to walk around by himself. Said he had hoped to meet me alone. Took off the glasses, and those blue eyes startled me. I’d seen some of his movies before, sure, and pictures in magazines here and there.

But those eyes. Fuck. The whole effect of him was nothing short of strange. He was unreal looking. People don’t normally look that way, with that combination of boyishness and maturity. Makes a guy want to ask what the hell his parents must’ve looked like.

I don’t think he’d seen much of me before our meeting. He gave that funny kind of half-recognizing smile that you give when you think you see someone you should know but aren’t positive about.

“Sean? Sean Astin?”

Perfectly fine American voice. Little bit of a depth and sharpness hinted at something else, but it was just residual. Damn, he was such a beautiful looking boy!

“Elijah Wood, I presume,” I said back nicely.

He looked very amused. Possible that he and his friends had been in the middle of something funny or entertaining before he’d walked into the lobby, because he was in a very good mood, and he grinned and hugged me tightly. I found myself moving to hug him back almost at the same time.

It was kind of weird, hugging a complete stranger—a male stranger, at that. Little did I know that the next sixteen months surrounded by British men—who seem to have no hesitation in showing physical affection towards one another—would convert me completely from my American stiffness.

He tugged me along to the car. I kept wishing he’d stand still so I could look at him. He was one of those people that you couldn’t really get a full grasp of unless you could just stare at them for a while.

 

 

One week into knowing Elijah Wood, I had decided I would become his Sam Gamgee. And it was sort of like he told the press. We were friends immediately. There was a lot of work to be done and we were partners.

The mood in New Zealand was as closed to controlled chaos as one could possibly get. I don’t think I had one moment to myself. There was script reading to do, rehearsal even when there wasn’t official rehearsal, and we had to get sized up for all the costumes and prosthetics. Training in sword fighting, canoeing, and the accents of our characters cropped up throughout the day. 

I stacked up the Lord of the Rings books on my nightstand and started reading them through for the second time. By the time we actually arrived on location, I knew Sam Gamgee in and out. He and I were becoming brothers. And Elijah was doing the same with Frodo.

There was some part of both of us deep down that matched our respective characters, so maybe that’s why we clicked. Not sure now exactly what it was that made me want to take care of him. Maybe it was Sam running around my head calling “Mister Frodo!” worriedly all the time.

The rest of the cast was a blur of British—Dom, Billy, and Orli. Viggo was Aragorn come to life, and we were all glad afterwards when we found out that they had decided to sign him and send Stuart Townsend packing. Sean Bean was quiet but highly amusing, even though his accent made it hard to understand him at times. And then there were the older men: Ian, John, and Christopher. They were in a category all their own. We kind of worshipped them and were deathly afraid of them at the same time. There were the girls as well; Liv and Cate, but they were only around from time to time.

This was a boy’s cast, when it came right down to it, and that was fine with me. I was eager to get away from California and see something entirely different. Being cast as Sam was quite possibly one of the most exciting things that had ever happened to me. So I kissed the wife and daughter goodbye and lost myself in my character.

New Zealand was wildly beautiful. It wasn’t hard to feel like you had just landed smack-dab in the center of Middle Earth.

The cameras rolled everywhere, even before filming started. The documentary and “making-of” people wanted to get right on things. The press was never far off.

Peter set us up in flats in the nearest town that could accommodate us all. Once we were settled, that’s when I really started to have time with Elijah. We’d been put in the same building on purpose, due to our character’s close relationship in the movie.

I spread out the glossy magazines on my coffee table and sifted through the images of Elijah Wood. I raised a particularly nice close-up to my face and stared into those eyes. I lowered the still, feeling rather stupid and silly.

 

 

“Beggin’ yer pardon, Mister Frodo, I was—no, no, that’s all wrong.”

Elijah snickered at me from across the room. I was working on Sam’s accent out of sheer boredom. As subtle as it was, it was damned near impossible to get perfect.

“Oh, Sam me dear,” Elijah sighed dramatically, flicking an empty CD case at my shoulder in playful jest. We had the latest rewrites spread out on the floor between us. 

We were in his room for a change, and Dom and Billy kept streaking in and out of the rooms with water balloons they’d managed to get a hold of. Orli had just gone off for some costume checks...something about boots.

Elijah was lying sideways across a small squashy armchair, looking like a cat in dark brown tabs and a baseball jersey, his hair messy as always. He was flipping through his rewrites, mouthing a phrase or two occasionally. He’d say a line; I’d reply with my line. We’d do it again. It was a simple thing between us now.

The light caught his eye funny from the direction I was looking. They were clear that way, those eyes, and when he concentrated he chewed the bottom right part of his lip.

I found myself watching him all the time. Is this the way Sam looks at Frodo? I questioned silently.

“Do you want to get a bite to eat? It’s just after ten,” I said.

“I should get back to my place,” he answered.

“You sure?”

“Mm,” he said. “We’ve got a five-thirty call, Sean, remember?”

I hadn’t forgotten. We were filming the Weathertop scene. It would be the first time the hobbits and Aragorn were together in front of the cameras.

He brushed passed me, gathering his things. He piled up his half of the rewrites—each page covered in the center background with “Frodo” in block letters. 

He yawned hugely and stretched near the hallway that separated the living room from the entranceway. A huge splat and splash came as Billy, from down the hall, tossed a water balloon at Dom, who ducked and skidded into the hall bathroom.

Elijah laughed and broke his yawn to get out of the way.

“Apparently they’ve forgotten the five-thirty call,” Elijah said dryly back at me.

I smiled and shook my head. I wasn’t yet converted to their kind of craziness. At first I thought it was my age—thirty-two. But Billy was almost that old, and he was still crazy. I was hard-pressed to figure when he actually learned his lines.

Elijah wandered over, grabbed his coat and keys and said goodbye the way he usually did: pressed his hand to my shoulder in a firm, manly kind of way and then let it slide down my arm until he was out of reach.

“See you in Feet, tomorrow,” he said with a wave as he slid out the door.

“Yeah! G’night!”

I sat back down on the floor and gathered up my copies of the rewrites, putting them in order as best as I could. My left side tingled where he had touched.

 

It was raining. Couple weeks into shooting now. The rain had come along unexpected and ruined a shot and also damaged some of the equipment. It would be a while before we could start shooting again.

Hobbit scenes today, mostly just Elijah and me. Dom and Billy were messing around somewhere off in the distance. They would be filming on another set location later.

We sat in costume under a hastily erected tent, wearing blankets, and clutching steaming styrofoam cups of coffee.

“Rainy New Zealand isn’t as pretty as Sunny New Zealand,” Elijah sighed.

I was amazed at what the costume and make-up did to him. It took his normally shocking appearance and worked it into a boy’s face that was almost as shocking as his own. I was reminded of how much younger than me he was. Maybe that was why I was so fixated on him. Maybe.

He sat back, careful not to mess too much with his wig. I watched him again; the gray sky in sharp contrast to his glowy fairness, the funny shape of his nose, and the cloudy shininess of the chain around his neck.

He lifted the coffee cup to his mouth and took a sip. I watched the liquid cling to the corners of his mouth. Everything he did seemed calculated. Even these every day movements unfolding under a cold, drizzled-on tent seemed careful.

He turned his head slowly, lazily, and smiled at me. The way that smile changed his entire look did something unsettling to me.

“It’s about time, alright! Hobbits on the set!”

I all but fell out of my rickety folding chair trying to get up.

 

 

Elijah was on vodka shot number five when I took him by the arm and steered him out to the parking lot. It was Friday, and that was party day for the cast. We celebrated, and by then I was already caught up in the insane antics of the other hobbits, so it was fine with me.

But Elijah got stupid when he got drunk, and tonight when he had knocked over a barstool and nearly fallen on his ass trying to fix it, I knew I ought to take him home. He was giggling madly and kept calling me Sam, petting my hair and my shirt like Frodo might. I just smirked and took it in stride and then threw him in the passenger seat of my rental car.

“You left everyone else there!”

“Billy’s got a car.”

“You’re quite rude, Samwise.”

“You’re drunk, Lijah.”

“Mmm…”

“Thank goodness we’ve got a day off tomorrow for once. I didn’t see a call for hung-over Frodo in the script yet.”

“You’re so sweet.”

I pushed the car to seventy when we hit open road. I wanted to get home as quickly as possible, though I wasn’t sure why.

The cool air and drive had sobered Elijah up a bit by the time we got to the flat. I took him up to his room and handed over his coat at the door. He was still a little woozy. It came off more as sleepiness and it made him look vulnerable. I felt a protective surge in me. Ah, good old Sam.

“Coming in?”

“Sure.”

He turned on the living room light and fell longways over the couch, rubbing his eyes. 

“Ooh, that light is bright.”

I was already in the kitchen putting some decaf on. Wouldn’t do much good, but at least it was a gesture. When I took it out to him, he smiled and sat up on the arm of the couch.

“You’re too good to me.”

“I know. I must be nuts. Hanging around those Brits too long,” I said, falling into the chair opposite the couch.

“They’re alright. A bit…grabby. But alright.”

“Ian’s really a trip, though. Did he give you the lecture about Frodo and Sam?”

“About ten times so far.”

“He’s right, though. Frodo and Sam are a lot more physically affectionate in the book than in the script…lots of snuggling and hand-holding and such.”

Elijah chuckled. “Too bad the audience is so sensitive about it.”

“How about this? ‘So, Peter, we were thinking…there isn’t enough hobbit-love in this film…’”

He laughed and rolled onto his side, which brought his pants and shirt tighter on his back. 

“That would go over big. We could write it up, steal the ‘P.J. approved’ stamp and send copies around to everybody.”

“We’d have to fell another acre of rainforest just to do it. It’s a miracle the environmentalists haven’t lynched him for all those rewrites yet.”

The light Elijah had turned on cast a shadow down the side of his face, and in the conversational lull he closed his eyes and laid there quietly.

“You call Christine recently?” he mumbled into the couch cushions.

“Yeah, just yesterday. Everyone misses me back home.”

Elijah smiled. “Must be nice, marriage and a kid.”

This line of talk was making me uncomfortable for some reason. I didn’t feel like discussing my wife. Being in character for days on end really blurred the line between reality and fiction.

“Hey, you’re young yet, Elijah.”

A pillow hit me in the head. Elijah smirked. “Thanks, old man.”

I grinned.

“Want more coffee?”

“No, it’s awful. Where’d you learn to make coffee?”

“Ingrate.”

He shifted around and sat up, eyeing me. “Let’s rehearse something.”

“Why? You’re still half drunk,” I said, smirking.

“You’ve got a point.”

 

 

“Surfing again?” Orli suggested.

There was groans all around from the group.

“No more of that. Finger breaking isn’t fun,” Billy muttered.

We were all laying around the hobbit’s trailer, almost dead after a long night of shooting, and looking forward to at least one evening free tomorrow. We had gone through almost everything that New Zealand had to offer in the first four months of shooting.

“How about a nap!” I injected loudly, rubbing talcum powder all around the edges of my ankles where the feet prosthetics were leaving painful red lines.

Elijah was running his hands through his hair near the mirror, picking out little bits of glue off his skin that the make-up people had missed when they took off the wig.

There was a brief scuffle over who was driving whom home that left me and Elijah alone, as usual.

He had that drowsy look that I knew now meant physical and mental exhaustion all wrapped up in one tiring package. One foot lay propped on the dressing table, the other dangled, and he leaned back in the chair, his head resting.

Somewhere from the back of the trailer the CD playing stopped and then began to repeat itself.

“You were awesome today, man, you really were,” Elijah said sleepily. “You just burst into tears as easily as Sam would.”

I smiled. It didn’t take much. The emotion he was able to display would keep any fellow actor in the moment.

“It leaves me kind of sore, though, you know? I feel sad for no reason.”

He smiled at me and stretched in his t-shirt and sweat pants. “We should swear off script reading and stuff tomorrow. Just do nothing.”

“No hang-gliding for you, then?”

He laughed. “I think Dom was kidding.” A pause. “At least I hope he was. I don’t really feel much like hang-gliding.”

He rubbed at his neck, looking uncomfortable. I wandered over from where I was on the cot near the corner and stood behind him, placing my hands on his shoulders and rubbing my fingers deeply.

I had lost some of my hesitance when it came to being close to him. We spent so much time touching, whether during scenes or after, just lying flopped somewhere next to each other. It was like having silent, constant conversation. So it was fine.

He closed his eyes and sighed, sitting up more in the chair. I watched his face in the mirror, loving to look at him when he wasn’t looking back. The tiny ticks and flinches in his facial muscles obsessed me.

And then there was his mouth. Well. His mouth was something else. Without the make-up he had to wear for shooting, it was beautiful. Very soft and pink and tiny. And the way anything he drank kind of shimmered just inside his lips. That was nice, too. Or when he would run out behind the trailer to smoke a cigarette between scenes and the cigarette would dangle so artfully from that mouth. 

I had never really watched myself watch him—or touch him—before. So it was kind of weird, seeing my fingers—slightly reddened from overzealous props people scrubbing off the dirt put on for the cameras—moving his flesh. That flesh that I so often compared to pale cream. 

His chest rose and fell with relaxed breathing as I worked my fingers first up and then down his shoulders, moving to the back of his neck. His hair was messy and damp from washing, and I pushed my thumbs up into the nape of his neck.

“Ooh, Sean, that’s fantastic,” he moaned. “Where’d you learn this?”

He tilted his head along with my hands. I was still caught up on his first sentence and found it hard to think with my fingers dipping low and teasing the neckline of his t-shirt each time.

“Standard stuff, Lijah. Us old timers need this occasionally.”

He laughed, tilted his head to the side. His cheek and neck brushed my hand and I jerked to a stop and then tried to cover the fact.

Not long after I drove him home. Back in bed, alone, I was tempted briefly to call Christine, and then thought better of it. Too tired to figure out the time difference. Too distracted to sleep. I stared at the glaring red digital numbers on the clock and changed into something more comfortable. I fell into bed, lying sprawled on my stomach.

I kept seeing Elijah’s mouth in my mind, and the way it worked with his eyes to make him look like eight different people over the course of one day. And beneath all that there was the young man that I was slowly getting to know. He was a decent person; very sweet to everyone he met. He was hard working and very talented. Dedicated to the project, definitely, passionate about being Frodo, without a doubt. 

But the way my thoughts kept circling his looks weighed on me. I never thought about any of the other cast members like that. 

The way he’d sat there in the dim trailer light, drained of all energy, and smelling of cheap soap. Yeah, let’s keep thinking on that. That’s good. That feels nice. His legs were more slender than you’d think, really, and looked much smaller when the hobbit feet came off. But then, he was fairly compact. Not at all muscular or overly toned but a plainly slender guy. Mmm. Then there was the neck, of course, which was far too nicely shaped for someone so small and young.

I only realized what this was doing to me when I had my hand in my boxers and was slowly working the erection that had begun to press into the sheets. Fuck. Shouldn’t be doing this, jerking off to these kinds of thoughts.

Then again, I wasn’t sure exactly what I was getting off on. Could’ve been the stress of the day just building. I was supposed to be exhausted, but whatever. I hadn’t had sex, of course, since my wife was back in Los Angeles, and I had no intentions of being unfaithful in New Zealand.

So I supposed it was going to be masturbation until the filming was done. Maybe Christine could fly in for a visit with Alexandra during a slow period. Now that there was the old me thinking—that felt almost familiar.

New Zealand me was too busy thinking half of the time like Sam and the other half of the time like Elijah’s best friend. It was weird, being so far removed from what was your entire life and discovering another person inside of you that you never knew existed.

My brain was too easily distracted from these abstract thoughts. I went back to thinking about Elijah—Elijah’s full, heavy stare during our scenes together. Elijah having to tackle and pin me over and over during the climax of the Osgiliath scene. 

“Alright, that was good, one more time!” 

“Tired of me sitting on you yet?”

“Sound? Rolling. Camera? Rolling! And…marker. Action!”

“It’s me! It’s your Sam!” Tear up, hurting from the look on his face, oh, poor Mister Frodo! “Don’t you know your Sam?”

Elijah dived out of the camera.

“Cut!”

Frodo fell away almost instantly and was replaced by a cold, achy Elijah, who came over and leaned on me until they set up the next take.

Oh, that was fine, just fine and nice to think of that, the hobbit wig brushing my neck, his hand on my back. I squeezed my cock a little harder, going faster, using the mattress as friction.

Mixed it up with images from tonight, feeling the whole shape of his neck between my hands. The pulse there, too, slightly off from normal. Mmm. What would he have said to more massaging? What if I had kept going instead of using the time as an excuse to drive us home? 

The bed creaked just a little as I got closing to coming. I stopped thinking real images so much as sensations or nothing at all. Felt so good, the tightening between my legs, and the rubbing and rubbing.

I made no noise when I did come, just sucked in and then let out a funny breath, pulling fast with my hand and arching into the mattress. I shuddered again and again with the pulses and my rough breathing. 

It wasn’t until later, when I was in the bathroom cleaning myself off, that I processed the fact that I had just gotten off on thinking about Elijah.

 

I knocked on his door. Took the moment to fix my jacket, check my pockets: keys, slips of paper with to-do type reminders on them, money. All there. We were going to meet John for dinner at some local place. Dinner with John paying was always an interesting affair; he’d order for the table, easily covering half the items on the menu, without asking a single person what they wanted. It would’ve been annoying if he had had no dining sense, but he surely did.

I put on some half-decent clothes for the night and over the phone Elijah had told me that he was doing the same. He had been filming some blue-screen shots down in a studio across the street from WETA all day, so it shouldn’t have taken him too much time to get ready.

I stood at the door to his place, and finally just said fuck it and let myself in. Even from the front door I could tell there was no one inside besides maybe Elijah. I moved through the central hall, passing the unused kitchen and the living room.

“Elijah?”

Off the bedroom was the main bathroom of the place, and I could hear the shower water going. Ah. Alright then. I wandered around the hall and then shrugged to myself and, drawn by the drowsy light coming from the bed-side lamps, stepped into the bedroom.

The place was a complete mess. Piles of clothes, bits of costume, and script lay on every available surface. How does he live like this?

I fought down the urge to straighten it up and make sense of the disarray for him. 

“Sean, Jesus!”

I looked up quickly to see Elijah standing in the doorway of his bathroom; entirely naked except for a towel clutched in front of his crotch.

Mentally, my jaw dropped. Physically, I just stood there gawking. The heat that went through my body wasn’t under my control. I looked away, tried to laugh it off, and just spun around to face the opposite wall.

The image of him covered in droplets of water and outlined by the brighter light of the bathroom went right to my cock. Felt like he’d reached across the room and squeezed me himself. Shit! Not good. I remembered the night a couple weeks ago when I jerked off thinking about him. Fuck.

“Sorry, man! I was going to give a yell but I got distracted by…uh…your room.”

Elijah smirked and looked around, then waded through the sea of junk by way of a path that could have only been cleared by his feet over the weeks he’d lived here. He wrapped the towel around his waist and went over to the armoire to rummage for clothes.

“I’m decent,” he said, his voice muffled from across the room.

I turned around and smiled uneasily at his damp, pale back. I’d seen him more or less naked before. Like when we’d gone surfing. And then there was the time we had to change after paintball. We hadn’t reached the Cirith Ungol scene yet, but I’d surely see him naked when we filmed that.

But seeing him naked had changed once I realized there was a whole sexual side to it. It wasn’t possible to deny it, not when it brought up the most violent, desperate lust in me.

Fuck.

“Blue or brown, do you think?”

I stared at him.

“Does it matter?” I asked, smiling as if to say the question was kind of prissy.

“What color are you wearing?” he asked, ignoring the comment. He turned around, which sent all the muscles of his back and hips twisting. I was tempted to close my eyes. I unzipped my jacket to show him my brown shirt. 

“Brown it is, then! We might as well match.”

“Am I your date?” I laughed.

He gave me a comical look, waggling his left eyebrow. “Got condoms in that pocket, Astin?”

I scoffed and chucked his jacket at him. He caught it, and held it to his chest endearingly, pouting and blowing me a mock kiss.

“Get dressed, Frodo. I’ll be in the car.”

He shook his head and laughed silently until I was out of sight. Back in the car, I let out a long, shaky breath and closed my eyes. Christ. I shifted uncomfortably in the driver’s seat, refusing to acknowledge the beginnings of a hard-on in my jeans.

This was getting crazy. I hadn’t done a thing to try and stop thinking these kinds of thoughts. Sure, I’d found a guy or two attractive in my life, but it was just a passing kind of thing. And I had always been flat-out in love with Christine. So I figured that was that along the attraction line. I had a four-year-old, for Christ’s sake. 

He came ambling down the short path between the house and the street, and flopped into the passenger seat of my car. He smelled incredible, wearing one of those colognes that he probably borrowed off Dom. The scent filled the car. My eyes wandered to his denim-clad legs and the short leather jacket he wore. Underneath he was wearing a white dress shirt with a brown sweater over that. We really did match.

“How did the filming go?” I asked, trying not to stare at his thighs.

“Not bad. It only took a few dozen takes before I hit my mark and said the line right. I swear, if I had to say ‘No body knows it’s here. Do they, Gandalf?’ one more time…”

I laughed. “At least it was a short scene.”

He nodded and chuckled. “Yeah, they had the marks laid out neatly and they were directing me. Wasn’t bad. At least it wasn’t polyurethane snow.”

“Mm. I’m starving.”

“Me too,” I agreed, my eyes drifting along his knees.

 

 

“No, no, lemme go, I can do it, I can do it!” he giggled, grabbing for my keys.

He wasn’t drunk, but he might as well have been. He had been acting hyper all night and cracked jokes at practically everyone at the restaurant. He dived for my keys playfully. I pretended to have trouble evading him, laughing, and we bumped into the car, with me on the inside and him pinning me to the metal.

We had brushed off an invite to go to a club. Well. Mostly I brushed off the invite. I liked sharing Elijah less and less.

The rest of the cast disappeared into the night towards their respective cars. Engines roared; headlights pierced the nighttime. But eventually the parking lot was silent. 

“Now, Mister Frodo, it’s not wise to go grabbing for keys like that,” I said, putting on the Sam accent, and he grinned. He loved when I messed around like that.

I liked that he wasn’t drunk, that he was just very happy at the moment. I held the keys behind my head and jangled them enticingly. He jumped up and down trying to get them, putting his arms around my neck. We were the same height, give or take a quarter of an inch, so it didn’t take much for him to reach around.

What’re you doing, Astin? Hmm. This is interesting… 

His fingers closed on the keys and his arms stayed there because I didn’t let go of the keys, either. He grinned and settled where he was, dropping his arms around my neck. We were very close together, lightly brushing from chest to knee, but not squished too close.

“Samwise,” he drawled slowly, widening his eyes and giving a warning, playful smirk; the combination made me throb. “It’s not polite to hold back keys from your Frodo.”

He got close, eyeing me. We’d done this so many times in character, and quite a few times out of character as well, and it was near impossible to not stare directly into his huge, blue eyes.

I quirked my left eyebrow once in a challenge, daring him to find some way to let me go, because I knew that, in this mood, he would do anything to win the tussle. He was like that, making everything a game and always trying to win. In the end, the sum of all his little victories made him feel more successful. Or powerful. Seemed to be the latter as I stood there, his nose inches from mine, with me holding my breath.

He stayed that way, then subtly slipped a hand down and began to tickle me madly. I squeaked and doubled over, but didn’t let the keys go, regardless of the fact that I hadn’t been expecting it. All the hobbits knew I was highly ticklish; I could barely keep still through all the make-up, prosthetics, and costume fixing that began our shooting days.

He grinned and kept on and we turned semi-circles, me trying to get away, him trying to simultaneously keep tickling me and get the keys. Finally I tripped over my leg—or was it his? Hm. Lost track there, in the tangle. We went down in a fit of laughter. 

He fell on top of me the way he did in the Osgiliath take, probably because we’d done it so many damned times. Except this time he straddled my hips and had my hands above my head.

He grumbled playfully. “My fucking elbow, shit, Sean, hold still.” He rubbed at his elbow and sniggered, falling forward on top of me. “Damn!”

“What’s the matter?”

“I hurt it,” he said, pouting, while looming over me and trying to undo my fingers one by one from around the keys. The annoying metal jumble was hurting my fingers and I would have loved to let him win, except for the part where that involved letting him go. Dangerous, Astin. Reeeal dangerous.

“Oh, boo-hoo. You’re such a pussy. OW!” He pinched my side hard and then grinned again, dropping his forehead to my shoulder. 

“Seeeean…give me the keeeys.”

“Can’t make me. I don’t trust you. You run red lights.”

“I’m a risk-taker. I live on the edge. Gimme the keys, Astin!”

“What’ll you give me?”

“Respect?”

“…”

“First pick of the CDs we listen to in Feet?” 

I snickered. I wasn’t going to give in. He could’ve said he’d give me his paycheck every week and I wouldn’t have let go of those damn keys.

“I can be very persuasive.” Again with the eyebrows and the smirk that could melt steel. 

I twitched again and just kind of stayed where I was. This was nice. Would’ve been nicer if I wasn’t lying on a parking lot, but hey.

“Oh can you now? See, I’m not feeling you, there. I’m rather unconvinced.”

His cheek was on my shoulder again. He tilted his face and tucked it into the curve of my neck. Fuck fuck fuck. 

“Mmm,” he hummed against my skin, sounding playful. “I could start paying attention to the hard-on digging into my thigh, Seanie. That might convince you…”

Shit. Well. There goes subtle. I closed my eyes and swallowed and I know he felt it, because he was right there on my neck. My pulse double-timed right there, as well, and he must’ve felt that, too.

He lifted his head, trying to put on casual, but I could see the tension lining his forehead.

“Sensitive, aren’t we?” he asked, lying more fully on top of me. I realized how quick this would have ended if we had chased each other around the side of the car view of the restaurant instead of choosing the side near the trees.

Fuck. This was too much. I was going to do something we’d both regret in the morning. Something that I might regret for much longer than that, too. I released the keys suddenly and his hand fell out of mine, holding the prize. 

He blinked at me, confused. I smiled shakily, feeling far too much like Sam, and moved to sit up. He got off me easily enough and tried to pretend the game had ended as planned.

The ride back to the apartment was silent, as was the walk up the stairs. The goodnight was mumbled. Before long, I was back in my bed, alone, again. The place was entirely silent. It wasn’t that late, really. The others wouldn’t be back for a while. 

I closed my eyes and rolled onto my back, rubbing my fingers down my chest and then gripping my cock lightly, starting a slow stroke. It was useless trying to ignore the evidence of my desire of Elijah—and getting rid of it as quickly as possible would be best.

As I held my noise to just harsh breathing, I could swear I heard a light creaky groan from the apartment above. I pretended it was Elijah jerking off the same as me, thinking of what just happened, both of us totally fixated on denim-clad bulges in jeans and long legs.

And when I came, I breathed his name.

 

Elijah seemed nonplussed by our encounter in the parking lot. I guess since he hung out with the Brits a little more than I did, physical horsing around that bordered on sexual wasn’t a big deal.

We didn’t get much time off for the following weeks. Shooting until late at night, sometimes allowing only for three or four hours sleep. We were all split up and spent a lot of time on different set locations. The temporary actors and actresses came through to do scenes. Orli complained about Liv making him drive her everywhere, because she didn’t trust herself to stay on the left side of the road. Dom and Billy moaned about the harnesses that they had to work in do the Treebeard scenes. 

We were all ripe for a weekend off, which Peter thankfully granted us. The boys were planning a big excursion. I was tired as hell and just wanted to sleep the weekend away. I was up to my neck in rewrites, having a good deal more dialogue to memorize than some of the other actors. But in the end all my excuses were aimed at avoiding people that might start bugging me about my mood swing.

This thing with Elijah was looking more and more one-sided, to boot. Our on-screen chemistry was the same; there didn’t seem to be a problem once we got on our disguises. But off-screen, I was a mess. I kept expecting things to happen. Something was happening, wasn’t it? But there was absolutely nada. He acted as though I was his big brother, and it was pissing me off.

At the same time, I was scared shit of cheating on Christine. But the more I looked at Elijah, the less it seemed like cheating. He and Christine weren’t even in the same category. I was completely obsessed with him. Didn’t even think about my wife when he was around. I couldn’t conjure up her soft, pale breasts or her fleshy hips between my brown fingers for anything in the world.

It was blue eyes I saw when I got myself off. It was that slim, compact body of a younger man that I felt under my fingers when I touched my own body. It was becoming real fucking annoying, actually.

I was getting my feet put on one morning, my head back against the headrest of the chair, eyes closed. I felt a tapping on my forehead. I opened my eyes to see Elijah hovering above me, upside-down from my view, smiling widely.

“You coming to Rotorua with us this weekend?”

I lifted my head and looked at him right-ways. “Nah. I think I’m just going to rest up.”

“Are you kidding? Oh, come on! You’ve gotta come. I’ll go crazy with all those Brits for the entire weekend. I need Californian fellowship!”

“We’ve been there already, Lijah, I’m not exactly missing anything.”

Elijah frowned a little, looking surprised that I didn’t want to go simply because he was. Sam goes everywhere with Frodo. The fact that I was flat-out refusing obviously bothered him.

“I’m not going, then.”

“What? Don’t stay here just because I am, man. Go have fun. I heard you even got Viggo and Liv to stay around long enough to go.”

“I’m not leaving you alone for the weekend. You’re right, we’ve been there before. I’ve had my fill of surfing. I’ll stay home. We can like…use the kitchen or something. Play video games.”

I couldn’t help but melt at his sacrifice and the attention. Inside, I sighed. If he was positive about ignoring this thing I had for him, that was okay. As long as our friendship would be alright in the end.

 

 

“What’s that?”

“Mushrooms.”

“Have you completely transformed into a hobbit?”

I laughed and stirred the contents of the frying pan. “What, you’ve never had rice and mushrooms?”

“It smells fantastic. I don’t mind mushrooms as long as they’re cooked well. Otherwise they keep the texture of an oily sponge.”

I smirked and threw a dishtowel at him. “Now that’s bloody appetizing.”

“Did you just say bloody?”

Damn. I did. 

“Stupid Brits!”

He laughed and disappeared into the living room, where the Playstation was idling. Grand Theft Auto was calling our names, and I had only paused the game to finish the last step of dinner. It was nothing really fancy. Steak, rice and mushrooms, some green stuff. And red wine. Lots of red wine.

We ladled the food onto plastic plates. We had already started on the wine, and it sat inelegantly on the floor in front of the TV along with our half-empty glasses.

Elijah was all compliments as we ate, and kept the conversation up so well that I knew he was avoiding silence. Ever since our weekend started, I got the sense that maybe he hadn’t forgotten that night in the parking lot as I thought he had.

I kept refilling his wineglass. He didn’t notice as we played. This, like every other game he played, he intended to win. He was rabid about it until he had beaten me enough times to let me know who the master was.

“Oh! Oh! Yes. See? Completely kicked your ass, there.”

I smirked and sat back on the pile of pillows we had brought off the sofa cushions. “I let you win, Baggins.”

“Hey! Who’s the Ringbearer in this family?”

That made me giggle madly. Of course, I was buzzed by then. He flopped back next to me, and clicked the Playstation console off with his toe.

“I’m glad I stayed home,” he sighed, turning on his side to look at me. “I think this kind of old-fashioned sleepover stuff is just what I needed.”

“Yeah?” I said, smiling. “That’s good. How about some old-fashioned dish washing?”

His right eyebrow went up. “So that’s why you invited me down.”

I laughed. “No. It’s got to be done, all the same.”

“What happened to the dishwasher?”

“Orli broke it.”

“Dare I ask how?”

“It had something to do with light bulbs and putty. I’m sketchy on the details.”

“Oh, God.”

I hopped up and gathered the plastic stuff. They weren’t a problem, but the pans and pots and such had to get cleaned up. He followed me into the kitchen. Bending over, he peeked into the dishwasher, and his eyes widened.

“Interesting color.”

I smirked. “I think that’s what Viggo said. He might’ve even taken a picture of it.”

We started washing the pots in the single sink. By the time the last one was drying on the rack next to the sink, the effects of the wine had worn off. I was thinking about how much I enjoyed these little activities with Elijah next to me. 

He reached over and swiped at my sweater. “Soap bubbles,” he said, smiling.

I don’t know what I was thinking, but obviously I wasn’t, because on impulse I reached for his wrist and took it before he could pull away. “You too,” I said, bringing my hand to his face and swiping my thumb along the top of his cheek.

His face grew pink. Well, note that, I thought to myself. He smiled, almost shyly, and I thought that it had to be on purpose. There was nothing inherently shy about him.

We drew apart as casually as possible and went back to the living room. My mind was going a hundred miles an hour. I finally understood why I had plotted this entire weekend. 

I was going to either have Elijah by the end of Sunday or not at all. I was going to either make the decision to act on my impulses or ignore them until the shoot was finished and the threat went away.

California was so damned far away and it didn’t seem to matter anymore what happened in New Zealand. 

Assuming, of course, he wanted me, too. It seemed like he did. We moved around each other with the silent nervousness that two people usually have when they’re attracted to one another.

Or maybe that was wishful thinking. Shit, well, I’d know sooner or later. And it’d better be sooner, I thought to myself.

On Friday night we’d made a pact not to discuss rewrites, dialogue, or anything having to do with the film. My rewrites sat untouched in a file folder on my dresser. No stress, no work, just two friends having a quiet wind-down session. So there wasn’t much to talk about, really, besides family back home; and neither of us wanted to touch that. It wasn’t us. It was a whole world away.

“You look tired, Sean,” he said on a sigh.

“Mm” was my only reply.

“I’ll sleep on the couch.”

I controlled the urge to tell him that we could share the bed. Seemed equivalent to “I’m really desperate to get laid, Elijah, so please hop on in.”

“You should take the bed, though. You’re the guest.”

He chuckled. “Don’t be noble. I’m fine out here.”

I eyed him, but he just shooed me. I watched him for as long as it took to straighten the living room and give him some blankets for the couch. 

He shrugged off his sweater, his undershirt lifting and providing a peak at his belly. I sighed to myself. He grabbed a pair of sweatpants from his bag and switched his jeans for them. All the while I pretended to be straightening his couch-bed up, but I was just staring at his legs and his ass through the fabric of his boxers before the sweatpants covered the view.

It was going to be a long night. It’s a miracle I haven’t developed carpal tunnel in my right wrist, I thought dryly, already feeling the heat in my groin.

He came up to me when all was ready and wrapped his forearm around my neck, bringing me in and kissing my hair. Usual goodnight gesture between us. He lingered more than usual; his fingers trailing down the back of my ear.

“G’night, Sam,” he said, which was also our custom.

“’Night, Frodo,” I replied, smiling affectionately and shivering.

 

I came out of the shower exhausted but clean. If I masturbated one more time I was going to go nuts. I was officially tired of me as a sex partner. But to get aroused from a little touch on my ear? What kind of mojo was he working, exactly?

It was around one o’clock in the morning when I thought I might be relaxed enough to sleep. The bed was huge and had never seemed so empty. No sound came from the living room, and I guessed that Elijah had fallen asleep a long time ago.

Just as I was on the verge of falling asleep, a slice of light spilled in from the hallway.

“Sean? Can I use your bathroom?”

Elijah stood in the hall, barefoot and slightly rumpled with his hair all sticking up. He looked fucking amazing. I was sorely tempted to intercept him somewhere between the hall and the bathroom.

“Sure,” I mumbled, rubbing my eyes and sitting up, trying to pretend I’d been asleep.

When the door to the bathroom closed, I listened closely. I heard him take a piss and then wash his hands. He was taking much longer than necessary.

He came back out; looked so good there in profile—loose pajama pants, fitted undershirt, bare neck and arms. He put his head on the doorframe and stared at me across the room. I smiled just because I had to do something or it’d feel stupid, the two of us just looking at each other. Time stretched and I felt like he was reading my thoughts, almost. Those damn eyes!

“This is fucking ridiculous, you know,” he said, his voice low and rumbly. 

I was going to say, “What’s ridiculous?” But he crossed the room and was at the side of my bed before I could get the words out.

I sat up and moved over to make room. I’m not sure whether I was inviting him in or just trying to get away from him. He looked kind of annoyed.

“You,” he said, sliding onto the sheets on his knees and taking my hand, “Just jacked off in the shower—” He brought my hand to his mouth and kissed my palm, which sent lovely shivers up my fingertips. “—thinking about me…and I just made a mess all over your nice couch…” He breathed hotly into my hand and then kissed up my arm. “…thinking about you thinking about me…”

I was frozen in place and running mental circles in my head. Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck no. Shit. Shit! Now this I hadn’t planned for.

“Elijah,” I started, and tried to pull my hand away. Fuck, I was hard again. I wanted to say something about the wine, about how it was really easy to make these kinds of moves in the darkness of a bedroom without thinking.

He tumbled onto his knees on the bed. He let go, but not before he’d managed to tug me up on my knees so we were facing each other levelly. 

“Sean?” he asked, as if saying, So? Do you have a better idea?

“Elijah…”

“I’m going to kiss you until you can’t breath,” he said dangerously.

I think I moaned. Or maybe it was more a squeak. Either way, I was going to come in my pants if he kept talking like that.

Fuck this.

We grabbed each other at the same time. He crushed my mouth under his. It was the most violent kiss I’d ever had. We kissed each other as hard as possible, sucking each other’s lips, biting down until there was surely blood threatening to break the surface. The blankets went flying as he threw me back on the bed and covered my body with his. A pillow flew off the bed, hit my alarm clock, and then knocked over a glass of water, which shattered on the wood floor. 

He kept kissing me, hot and full, his tongue plunging against mine, diving into my mouth with no hesitation. His hands were rough in my hair, tugging and pulling, keeping my face on his as if I might at any moment try to pull away. 

I couldn’t stop if I wanted to. I wrapped my arms around his body, pulled him into me. To hell with tenderness. I dug my hands down the length of his back and wrapped my fingers around his ass, pulling him in and grinding our erections together.

I almost erupted right there at the feeling of him just as aroused as I was. He gasped and I think I did, too, as we broke the kiss to get enough oxygen to go on kissing. But when he ducked back in, he went for my throat instead of my lips.

All the while he murmured, kissing and biting my neck. I was rocking my hips into his by now, all courtesy abandoned.

“Do you have any idea…how long I’ve waited for the chance to do this…I’ve gone to bed so many nights hard as a fucking rock thinking about you…about dragging you off between scenes and just taking it until our next call…”

“Elijah… Shit, yeah, keep…keep doing that…keep…oh my God…”

He reached the apex of my neck and shoulder and kissed there. He bit down hard enough to make me make some kind of noise and writhe. I could feel him sucking there, hard, and I knew I would carry the mark for a good week.

He groaned and tilted his head back, pushing up on one hand above me. His right hand went down my thigh, guided my leg around his hip. He went on rubbing us together through our pajamas. The profile of his milky face in the moonlight of the room and the way his eyes rolled back in his head brought another violent surge of passion in me.

I was throbbing and stiff, pinned between him and myself. I grasped his ass again between my fingers and felt him jerk responsively, his breathing catching as he ripped at my shirt. I wanted his off, too, and he broke from kissing my collarbone long enough to let me whip his off.

I put my hands on his neck, felt all around his ears and jaw and neck, then downward. I pinched his nipples between my fingers, wanting to see them hard, wanting to make them darker. He moaned and twitched.

“Sean…Sean, yes, harder, d-do that again,” he breathed.

I ran my hands up his back, lifted up, and kissed only briefly at his neck and throat before going to his nipples. I sucked and nibbled them until he cried out. I was painfully aroused as he kept thrusting our bodies together. I wanted to come so badly.

I pulled him down on me.

“Shit, this is too fast,” he gasped.

“We’ll take time later,” I shot back quickly, and pulled him on top of me. I slithered my hand between us enough to push the sweatpants off his hips and then to shove mine down around my thighs.

There was a shared sigh of relief as the cloth let us free, and I flushed hotly with the feeling of his cock right next to mine.

“Shit,” he moaned, and let his head fall to my shoulder. “I’m going to come, Sean, if you keep… Ahhhh!”

I had wrapped my legs around his hips and pressed us hard together. My fingers moved roughly over his back, digging in, leaving red marks, no doubt. Yes, that’s what I wanted. I wanted to make marks. I wanted him to fuck me, I wanted everything, but if I didn’t come soon, I was going to have a goddamn heart attack.

“I want you to come,” I breathed against his ear. “Elijah, come with me…I’ve thought about this for fucking months…you’re so hard…”

He groaned against my ear. “S-Sean…shit…shit…”

He gave in to me, feeling my legs around him, and began to thrust us together against our bellies, rubbing the straining hardness together.

“Wait, wait, lemme…”

He fumbled between us a little and slid his hand as far around both our cocks as he could. I cried out and squirmed and my balls were so tight that I was turning red all over. He shuddered, faltered, and then began thrusting us into his hand.

The headboard of the bed tapped the wall rhythmically as he thrust us together, tightening his grip and adding a little opposing friction to our motion. I was lost, wrapped around him, dying over and over.

When he bent over me and buried his face in my neck, I knew he was close. He kept stopping, panting, and then starting again, and I could feel the muscles in his limbs trembling.

“Seeean…”

“Oh, God…”

“I’m gonna come!”

“Fuck…fuck…just a little mm…more…”

He let out this strangled, surprisingly whimpery groan and the sound drove me over the edge. I grabbed his hips and thrust hard once last time against his hand. He squeezed our cocks together long and hard, and we came all over my stomach, staggering in breathing and in motion as the orgasm washed over us over and over. 

He collapsed on top of me. His lower back was damp with sweat, but his shoulders were dry. He worked my cock a little longer than his and more semen leaked from the tip. Once we were both spent, he stayed there on top of me, breathing unevenly.

The room was silent, finally. My arms were still around him and so were my legs, though they were just near his calves now instead of his thighs. I was shaking and my mind wasn’t working properly.

He lifted his head. His hands smoothed the hair from my forehead and he kissed me. It was a real kiss this time, not just an angry one, and it felt so good, that slow drift of wet silkiness teasing my mouth out to play.

When he went still and opened his eyes, I felt a catch in my throat. Those eyes were so indescribably beautiful that I could’ve cried then and there. That was Sam popping up again.

“Sean. God. I…I don’t want to ruin the moment, but, fuck… I’m crazy, man; you’ve got a family… I’m sorry…fuck, you’re going to kill me in the morning…”

It was his turn to look teary-eyed. I wasn’t feeling guilty, which was the strange thing. I wanted more. I wanted it again, slower. I wanted to do every goddamn thing they’d invented for two guys to do in bed.

“I’m not screaming or crying, am I?” I whispered, and ran my hands through his hair, loving the feeling. God, I’ve always wanted to do that. I touched his ears and the back of his neck and kept stroking his hair through and through until he slumped at my side.

He closed his eyes and fell asleep with tears on his cheeks before I could even go on consoling him.

Imagine that…me, consoling him.

 

 

He wasn’t in bed with me when I woke up. I thought the worst—that he regretted our frantic, half-drunk encounter last night. That he hadn’t been able to look at me, even asleep, once morning came.

But he was just sitting near the window, knees to his shirtless chest and sucking on a cigarette intently. He looked painfully sober.

All the tension left my chest. He’d heard me move and looked up, ashes falling from the tip of his cigarette. We looked at each other for a long time.

He held the cigarette between the first two fingers of his right hand and scratched his head all the way back through his hair with the other, looking away from me.

“I was going to go,” he said.

The tension came back. I sighed and groped for my t-shirt. I fancied that I could see the stress marks where he had almost torn it to get it off me. An image of him above me played on the backs of my eyelids. I put the shirt on and swung my legs off the bed, sitting up.

“Why?” I asked. My voice was quiet. A bad attempt to use the tone I always used.

He stared at me as if he’d never seen me before. “Are you going to tell me that you’re not the slightest bit freaked out?”

“Elijah. I’ve… Shit,” I sighed, standing and seeing the shattered glass all over the floor; the toppled lamp; the pillows halfway across the room. Had we done that?

“I was going to clean before you woke up.”

I tore off the top sheet from the bed and used it to push the glass into a neat pile and then cover it. I’d pick it up later. I righted the lamp and ignored the pillows. Realized I was just doing this to avoid looking at him. I stopped midway through fixing the bed and let the blanket drop.

“I’m not freaked out.”

“We were both pretty buzzed. Are you sure you’re remembering it the way I am?”

He sounded a little amused, but I could hear the tremor in his voice. He was worried. I found it funny, too. Did I remember it the way he did? Fucking hell. I wasn’t sure I could stop remembering it.

“I’m sure,” I said, putting as much duh emphasis as I could without sounding snarky. 

“Then I guess some clarification is in order,” he said, standing from the chair next to the window and crushing the bud of his cigarette into the ashtray he had put there on the sill.

I turned and sat on the edge of the bed. Seeing him shirtless tugged at my brain again. But I was so scared of doing something wrong that moving to touch him never became an option.

Clarification. Yeah, that’d be nice. I had no idea what the hell he thought about me. At best I figured it was some latent attraction because of our characters. Hell, since I had been setting myself up for rejection, attraction was all I had set my sights on. That was about as high as the expectation bar went.

“Right. Yeah. That’s—that’s a good idea,” I said lamely. 

He stared at me, raising his eyebrows. “You start,” he nudged after a long pause.

“Why do I have to start?”

“I suggested. You agreed! You go first.”

“That logic is so you.”

“Sean.”

“Fine, fine. Sit down already; you’re making me nervous.”

He fell into the chair by the window again. I sat back down just to keep things even.

“I don’t know how to start. Ask me something,” I said.

“Ugh. Alright. When did you…you know…figure it out.”

“Months ago. I felt it the second I laid eyes on you, though.”

“Do you think it’s just because of Frodo and Sam?”

We often referred to our characters as real people. They were real, for all intents and purposes, and because we had such a different dynamic when acting the roles, they maintained a very profound third-person effect on us when we weren’t acting. 

“No,” I replied.

“How can you be sure?”

“It just isn’t. I don’t think about the movie or the dialogue when I’m with you. It isn’t like that at all. It’s just…you.”

He accepted that, I guess.

I wasn’t able to look at him directly and my face was burning. It was all so embarrassing. Maybe if he spoke, or agreed, or touched me, or something, I’d feel a little less alone in my feelings.

“It was the first couple weeks. After we got here. When we started getting into being friends,” he tacked on, staring up at the ceiling. “Everything about you just…damn, it drove me crazy.”

“But what…I mean. Okay. What is all this? What do you want? It’s an on location thing. At least, that’s what it looks like. It’s one of those thanks-for-the-time-let’s-go-to-the-wrap-party things.”

“That’s sweet, Astin,” he smirked.

“I’m serious. I’m married, Elijah. I’m having a hard time reconciling this.”

“You don’t have to. We don’t have to do this, if it’s a problem. I’ll chain myself to my bed. I’ll shut up. I’m not going to fuck up your life, Sean.”

I wanted to say, “You already have.” But that might come out a lot meaner than I intended. I grumbled dismally into my hands.

“I’ve never been with a guy,” I muttered quickly.

His left eyebrow shot up. “You’re lying.”

“Am not.”

“Fuck. You could’ve fooled me.”

“Have you?”

“Just physical stuff. Mostly drunken moments. But I’ve always found men attractive.”

“Are you gay?”

“…Don’t think so. I like women, too.”

“So you’re bisexual.”

“Whatever. Does it need to have a label?”

“Of course it does.”

“I don’t want it to. That means I’ve got to defend an image. My own image is enough pressure, thanks. Besides, private life is private life.”

I sighed. Why was I trying to argue? Maybe because I wasn’t too sure how I would handle a new sexuality awareness.

“You’re right. Just tell me to shut up.” I paused. “This is going to sound scary, but bear with me. I can’t picture leaving New Zealand and never seeing you again. I don’t know what life will be like beyond that, but… You’ve got to promise me that no matter what happens, we’ll stay friends.”

“Fair enough. Swearing to keep things even, I mean. Sean, if after we went home you just slipped off and never called me, I’d track you down, anyway. Hell, that goes for half the guys on the cast.”

I smiled. Alright, fine. That worked.

“We’re agreed that last night wasn’t just drunken impulse?”

“Yeah. Not at all.”

“I was rough with you. Shit, man, if I would’ve known you had never been with another guy I would never have pounced you like that.”

He looked really guilty. He looked hot when he was guilty. Well. He looked hot all the time, but especially when he was feeling something honest.

I couldn’t help but smirk. “It was intense. I didn’t want to go slow any more than you did. That was…months of tension, right there.”

He smiled and then laughed just a little. That made it easier. We started to grin at each other and after a time, relaxed.

I was all too eager to forget the list of reasons why it was stupid for us to pursue this. I was past morality twinges. I had never needed another person like this, really. I loved Christine very much and we made a great couple. But desperate need? Need so irrational and complete as this? Not really. I wondered if all men who allow themselves to feel for other men go through the same thing.

“So we’ll just, you know. Let this happen. Talk about what happens after we wrap later. Hell, look at this place, Sean.” He stared out the window. “This is Middle Earth, man. Close to paradise as we’re going to get. I love being here with you. This is crazy.”

His smile wound me up in knots as always. I wandered up behind him and let my hands skim his sides and then circle his waist. He sighed and leaned into me.

“I could get used to this,” he said. “You know, all that half-hugging on the set…it just wasn’t enough. I always wondered how far we could push it before it started to cross lines. I think the press likes it, though, catching us hugging or leaning on each other.”

I laughed. Yeah, I’d put money on the press publishing as many suggestive, out-of-context photos that they possibly could. Didn’t matter. The sun by now was coming into the room directly at us, but we didn’t move. I stared out over the mountains that rose in the distance and felt his heart beating against his neck; and that was all I needed for the moment.

 

When the crew came back later that night, they descended on the house like a flock of overexcited birds. Every room in the flat was filled with the Fellowship. I clung to Elijah’s side more than usual. He was being slightly more generous with himself; he’d keep his arm around me for a long time, play with my shirt or pants leg, or just sit so that we were somehow touching.

I couldn’t deny that the suspicious and sometimes curious looks cast at us by our little family excited me. I knew Elijah and me couldn’t possibly be the first to have an on-location fling. In fact, the boys always teased me that I never went looking for relief, as they put it.

During a rare moment, Orli pulled me into the kitchen on the pretense of finding a corkscrew to open some wine. 

“Alright then. Tell! I want to hear everything,” he said, sitting up on the kitchen counter.

“Eh?”

“Oh, come on. Don’t play stupid. You’re glowin’ like a candle. Don’t tell me this whole weekend wasn’t one messy honeymoon.”

I turned purple, I think, and rolled my eyes at him.

“It’s about bloody time! You were burstin’ at the seams with tension, mate. And it’s not like he’s been with any of us.”

“He hasn’t?” I asked, before I could realize how jealous I suddenly felt at the possibility.

Orli grinned and skimmed a hand over his mohawk. “No, he hasn’t, Mister Gamgee.”

I sighed. I guessed it would get around sooner or later. “Try and keep this quiet for the moment, please.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Think that’s necessary, really? I mean, he’s all over you tonight. Don’t think he cares much.”

“He doesn’t have a wife back in LA,” I grumbled, crossing my arms.

“Oooh,” Orli crooned. “I see how it is. Look, don’t kill yourself over it, alright? You’re the last to indulge, as it were, so just calm down. Fuckin’ unbelievable you waited this long. He’s like fresh milk, I’ll bet.”

“Mind your own concubines, Elf,” I said, smirking. My face was red and I didn’t like to talk about Elijah like this with anyone.

Orli found the corkscrew, waggled it at me poignantly, and then walked off.

 

 

Over the course of the night and the next day on the set, similar conversation happened between me and Dom and Billy. It seemed all the hobbits and Orli had been watching Elijah and me for some time and wondering when one of us would make a move on the other. Made things easier, them knowing and not caring, especially in the trailers and at rehearsals. When there was no press or cameras, we could cuddle up while going over lines.

We even kissed once or twice in front of other cast members, though it was quick and playful and could have been explained away as a joke to anyone who managed to see. We hardly ever got a night together, though, because of all the scenes we had to film with Andy. 

I was getting tired of blue screens and sets in parking lots and ponds in people’s backyards. We were in the car most of the time. Elijah would reach over and put his hand over mine and we would sit like that for the whole duration of the car ride.

By the time we got home—if we even made it back in time to drive to the flats—we were too exhausted to talk, much less mess around. We somehow managed to shower and fall into bed without slumping over where we stood.

It was a month into this when I got a phone call from Christine. All our conversations for a while had taken place over voice mail. They boiled down to her asking me to call her and my reply being excuses as to why I couldn’t call her. The only time I actually got on the line was to talk to Alex. Hearing my four-year-old daughter’s excited voice melted me a little and I wished she were with me on the set. But that meant Christine coming, too, and I wasn’t ready for that.

She caught me off-guard with the call, that night, and I was forced into talking to her. Once ensnared, I thought hearing her voice might do something to me the way hearing my daughter’s voice did. Make me miss her, want her here with me, something. But she wasn’t in a good mood, and I knew that right away. I hated how she circled what was bothering her until I had to drag it out of her.

“Sean…why have you been so distant lately? Okay, before you start, just, hear me out. I know you said you would be unavailable for a lot of the time. We’ve been through this before and it was fine. You…you used to call all the time, though.”

“Babe, this is different. I’m a whole world away; the time zone is different. This movie is more involved than anything I’ve ever worked on.”

“But even when you do call, you’re so quick with me. I’m not happy with this arrangement, Sean. I…damnit, hold on, the dog is trying to get into the garbage again…”

A brief tussle on the end of the line and she was back. I wished she wasn’t, and the fact made me feel rotten.

“I think I should come down there. The baby misses you. We…we need to talk.”

Why do women use that phrase? There isn’t anything that strikes up worry and annoyance quicker in a man than hearing “we need to talk.” I knew what she was implying, and I sure as hell didn’t want to wait however long it took for her to fly out here to breach the subject.

“What are you getting at?” I asked seriously, trying not to sound angry.

“I need to see you. Look, I’ve got to go, Alex needs a bath.” The dog was barking.

“Chris, look, you can’t just—”

“I’ll call you with the flight information later. G’night Seanie.”

Fuck.

 

I had to go along with my wife coming to New Zealand. Wasn’t given a choice, really. By the time Christine got everything together and squared away for the trip, it was a few weeks after the conversation on the phone. All the talks between that and her arrival focused on the flight, the airport, and rants about sightseeing and tours of all the sets.

When I brought her back to Wellington, she was shocked to see the condition of the flat we lived in. It had become quite messy by then, despite my constant picking up. We were just in and out too much to give a good cleaning. I wondered what she’d say if she saw Elijah’s flat. He spent most of his time down here with me, anyway, so the shrine of junk stayed exactly how he left it.

Before I went to the airport to pick up Christine, he and I had had a long chat about the time she’d be spending in New Zealand.

“It’s only for a week, maybe two at most. And we’ll be filming some days, so she’ll get bored quick enough. Maybe she’ll even leave sooner. I put all your clothes in the bottom drawer on the left-hand side. Your toothbrush and stuff is under the cabinet near the laundry bin.”

I kept kissing him and rubbing his arms as I rambled on. When I stopped, he smiled, looking quite amused.

“Sean? You may need a nap after that performance.”

I brushed that off, all gentle scoffing. When next he spoke, his voice was lower and more serious.

“What happened to keeping your New Zealand and California lives separate? No, no, I don’t mean having her come here. I mean…you complaining about her all the time. Talking her down to make me feel better. I thought we weren’t going to do that.”

How could I explain? Truth was, I had no idea what I felt for my wife anymore. Months of being intimate with Elijah made it so hard to remember what it felt like to do the same with Christine. 

“Lijah, I…” I sighed. “It’s impossible to keep the two separate. I’m going to see her. I’m going to see what it feels like to be around her and talk to her. I guess she isn’t happy with me much either, and…I don’t know anymore.”

The closer we got to finishing the movie, and the closer a return to California loomed, the more desperate I became to make room for Elijah in the world we had specifically agreed not to talk about until “later”—back home.

Elijah confided in me that he was just as nervous about what was going to happen. He had never had a long-term relationship with anyone, male or female. He had never even brought a girl home to his mother, whom he was very close to. In fact, his trip to New Zealand had been his first real taste of being on his own. He had acted his whole life and had never gone to public school. His filming Lord of the Rings was like college, sort of, to him, he said, even though filming other movies had given him some freedom as he got older.

The more time we spent together, he told me, the less he cared about what we “officially” were. We stopped bringing up questions of status and sexuality. We never talked about long-term living arrangements or anything involving commitment. He was so young, I realized, and I didn’t want to make him feel like he owed me anything.

We were living this dream together; the job wasn’t easy, but the rewards for filming the movie were much greater than the strife of making it. And that’s why I felt as though I could never handle going back empty-handed. If I was going back to America, never to see New Zealand as a hobbit again, I was going to take a piece of Lord of the Rings back with me. I wanted that piece to be Elijah.

I never said anything along those lines to him, however. And even though I was open to my feelings for Christine, I had made my decision that Elijah would never been too far from my life. It was sheer luck that we were both from California and spent a lot of time there, even when we were acting or directing.

But that was perfect, because we’d always be in driving distance. And even if we had to sneak around to see each other, it would be worth it. Elijah was my Frodo, and he was integral to my keeping the experience of New Zealand alive long after it was over.

With lingering kisses—and no time for anything more—I left him in his unused apartment and went to help Christine settle in.

 

Alex quickly became every cast member’s niece. She fell in love with all the boys instantly and the feeling was returned ten-fold. She ran around the set between takes; she squealed when one of the prop people let her have a pair of slightly beat-up hobbit ears; she learned some Elvish words from Viggo and got her picture taken every day.

We’d gotten Billy and Dom to baby-sit, that night. The intention was to have some quality alone time. To catch up and to talk. 

Being around Christine again was strange. I had gotten so used to being physical with a man that touching her felt all wrong; she was the wrong shape, the wrong texture, had the wrong parts. Gradually I accepted she was a woman again. I marveled that a few months with Elijah had made me feel like she was a complete stranger.

In fact, looking at her, I realized I had no idea who she was, essentially. I used to know; oh, yes, indeed, I used to know everything about her. Her dreams and fears, her pains and her joys. It was information that was all stored neatly in the folds of my brain. But everything had changed now that the baby was getting bigger and my career was hitting a high point again as it had in the past.

And every day I spent in New Zealand—with Elijah—took me farther and farther away from the desire or need to make up for lost time with Christine.

We had dinner. We talked easily enough about family back home—neighbors, things she’d done with the money coming in, things the baby had said. I liked talking about Alex mostly, because she was my tiny angel, and if Christine had given me nothing but her, I was grateful.

Back at the flat, I found myself going through motions I might’ve gone through with Elijah. I poured some wine on for us, flipped a CD on. Well. Him and me might’ve gone at the Playstation before anything else, but… It brought a smile to my lips. She asked me what I was smiling for.

“Nothing,” I replied quietly into my wineglass.

When she reached up to take the glass from me and tugged on my arm, I knew what was going to follow. And usually I would have been waiting expectantly for her to signal that she wanted me, that the night had reached that point. No matter what people say, sex after marriage does change. It was more of a “the baby’s not here to interfere and we’re both home and not exhausted” situation.

It got sweeter from there, usually. It started because we had time and we had energy, but it always ended real nice. She was wonderful: attentive in bed and not shy about taking or giving what she wanted.

But my heart wasn’t in this, I realized, as we sat on a couch in New Zealand, with the landscape outside as distracting and mythic as it always was and hopefully always would be. Her small, soft hands took off my clothes. She touched me lightly and was slow and easy with everything.

I hated it. Even though Elijah and I hadn’t got the chance to repeat our first frantic night together in any way, we had snagged time here and there for making out or what have you. It was always so exciting; tingling round the edges with an electric quality that made my whole body feel unstable. It was what I thought being with Christine was like. Maybe it was, in the beginning, I don’t know; couldn’t recall. 

I closed my eyes and tried to make love back to her. It would be selfish to not return whatever she gave; even though I wished she were someone else. We ended up on the floor of the living room and she was on top of me.

I stroked her and helped her along, getting her almost to the point of orgasm before sliding inside her. I hadn’t had sex in a very long time; not real intercourse, anyway, and my body liked it well enough. She was tight and hot and shivering, and that was fine and wonderful. 

But it wasn’t Elijah. This was pleasure in a one-foot radius around my crotch. This wasn’t amazing. It was sex, and sex is always pleasurable for male genitalia, so long as it’s consenting. I was not focused at all on myself. My mind wandered and with much guilt I conjured up Elijah in my head. She was able to come several times before I did. Her noises brought me around, and I grabbed her hips and thrust into her one final time, spilling into her body. Effortless and empty. God.

She was gone for a brief second to get a towel. It was sort of a ritual, her getting up and fetching a damp cloth, because we always seemed to forget we would need it. I let her clean us up and then lay with her afterwards. She pulled a blanket from the couch, and I wanted to tell her to put it back, because it was Elijah’s blanket, but I caught myself at the last second. I lay awake long after she fell asleep.

The next morning was when the evaluation came. I realized soon enough that the night before had been a test; and she was now ready to lay down the score in front of me. We got halfway through a silent breakfast before she let her fork clatter noisily to her plate.

“We should talk now,” she said, and her throat was tight, which made her sound angry.

I nodded gently, all encouragement. Prepared myself for what I knew was going to follow.

“You haven’t been with me this entire week,” she said clearly, as if she’d been putting the words together like a script. “You’re the same man that waved goodbye to me in California, but it’s like looking at a doll. There’s nothing behind your eyes for me anymore. The only life I’ve seen is in you is when Alex is with us. So I guess that leaves me as the problem.”

I wanted very much to avoid arguing. I had no strength in me to deal with her wounded heart. I should have; it was my fault. But I didn’t. And I didn’t want to try.

I had no call to be on set that day. Peter was working with my schedule to give me as much time with my wife and daughter as possible. I’d have to make up for it later, but we still had time. But the point was, I had no where to be and no excuse to leave.

“Chris. Please, please don’t start this now, I… I’m too tired for this,” I said.

“How can you say that? You can’t just brush aside this issue because of fatigue! For Christ’s sake, Sean, you’ve changed. It’s this damned country and all these new people, and you’re nothing like the man I married! God, it’s only taken me five days to realize it. Every movie, every project, every late night I sat and smiled through and all it takes is some damned fantasy movie to break us apart.”

I was taking controlled breaths and my teeth were clenched. Stupid, stupid woman. And at the same time, how could I blame her?

“I’ve been away on location before, Christine. This isn’t anything new. We’ve spent time apart—just as much time as this.”

“Something’s changed this time,” she said gravely, shaking her head at me and tearing up. She grabbed her napkin, angrily dabbed her eyes, and then stared at me. “There’s something else about this project that is taking you away. Nothing I’ve said or done has even gotten an honest response from you. I might as well have been making love to a phantom last night.”

I stared down at my food, arms crossed, jaw tight. Anger swelled in my chest—and along with it the desire to tell her the truth and shut her up.

“You’re just going to sit there and not say a word,” she breathed incredulously.

“What do you want me to say? I don’t want to hurt you. You’re right. I am different. I have changed. People change, and I’m not above it. Did you ever think that maybe I might need different things than you? That I was human, too? For God’s sake, Christine.”

I stood up, all but threw my dish in the sink, and stood there with my back to her, clenching the countertop and staring into the sink.

“I love you and I love Alex. I don’t want either of you to be hurt because of things I feel or do or say,” I said, impassioned, and turned on her. “But answer this. When I come home, even for a little while before all the movie promotion starts—can you see us being the couple we were before I left?”

She stared at me, her eyes filling with tears. She looked hard and strong and not at all unsure, but she wasn’t interesting to me anymore. She had lost her magic because I had fallen out of love with her months ago. The emotion was gone; the reasons for being her husband were gone.

“No,” she whispered, and the tears spilled over her cheeks silently and disappeared under her jaw. “Not at all. I…I can’t believe… I just… Fuck!”

She hardly ever cursed and it sounded funny coming from her. If we were who we used to be, I would’ve made some joke about it. She stood up suddenly and paced the length of the kitchen.

“I knew this was going to happen,” she whimpered, wringing her napkin between her fingers and getting flustered. “I knew, and I don’t know how, but the moment that plane disappeared down that runway I knew it was going to end.”

I had one hand braced over the right side of my face, lightly pinching the bridge of my nose and supporting my chin. There was nothing I could say to make it better. She was right and there was no reason to disagree.

“Sean,” she whimpered again, tears clogging her voice, and she tried to move towards me. But I stiffened when she touched my arm, and she saw and felt it and pulled away as if I burned her hand. She stared hard at me for a long moment.

“There’s another person, isn’t there? Only someone else could make you stop feeling for me so quickly. It doesn’t happen like that naturally!”

My jaw flinched. I wasn’t going to bring Elijah into this, but I couldn’t lie entirely.

“And if there might be? Or might have been? What can you know? Nothing, Chris, not a goddamned thing. But that’s not even the issue. It’s not…it’s not that simple. It’s a whole combination of things. I’m just changing.”

“So that’s it? That’s your final say? For that, you’ll give up everything; our life together, our daughter!”

I winced at that. “We don’t have to make changes that way. And you know very well that nothing would stand between me and Alex, and don’t you even hint otherwise!”

I took a step towards her, anger in my face, and grabbed her arm. I softened my hold on purpose and drew her close to me, but my words stayed angry.

“I won’t make us both miserable by keeping up a broken, unhappy home that’s held together simply because a child can’t understand the meaning of separation. If we keep on like this, she’ll be exposed to unhappiness ten times the size of what she might if her parents split up.”

She was crying openly now, but didn’t make a sound. “You want a divorce.”

Her tears were starting to get to me. I felt my eyes gloss over as well. I was remembering the first time I met her; the first time I kissed her; the first time I realized I was in love with her. I saw our wedding and our families toasting long years of happiness to us. I was remembering holding her hand as she screamed and sobbed in pain giving birth to Alex. 

But the change was obvious to me; these thoughts were suddenly kept in the part of my brain where expired memories were. I thought on them as though they had taken place lifetimes ago. As though the emotions they represented had gone even longer than that.

Even if Elijah had no intentions of being with me beyond what we had already established, the damage was done. I was in love with him as surely as I had been in love with Christine.

But more important to the situation than needing him, was not needing her. For whatever reason, my life with her was over. Was Elijah the cause? Was he just the final step in a series of changes that took me away from her? Was it all supposed to happen, regardless, and the order of it wasn’t important? The question of whether or not a life with Elijah was about to start didn’t matter either. 

She went on yelling a little longer. I yelled back. She cried some more; I cried with her. She railed at me and after a time we held each other. But when it was over, we stood outside on the front steps of the porch, and she had all her and Alex’s things. And the end result was that we both realized it was for the best. 

She had calmed down by now. In her heart, I knew she wanted to move on as much as I did. And standing there, looking at this person who was suddenly and wholly a stranger, I smiled. She smiled back, though it was weak, and the tears still lingered in her eyes.

“We don’t have to do anything official right away. After all the post-production pomp is over we’ll get the papers drawn up.”

I nodded. I wanted her to go. I knew where Elijah should be, and was hastily trying to remember directions to the location of his scenes for that day. She took a step towards the taxi that she had insisted on calling for herself. She would be over again before their flight, so I could kiss Alex goodbye, but it would be only for a short time. She hesitated near the cab.

“I want you to know that I didn’t come here with the intention of us separating,” she said softly. “I think…I think we met for the same reasons. I think we were both testing it.”

I nodded and smiled again. I walked over to her and kissed her forehead.

“I know. You’re right, Chris. You’re absolutely right about that.”

She gave a quick, wobbly smile that threatened to break under a fresh wave of tears. She watched me through the back window until the taxi was far down the block. I didn’t move for a long time after the street went silent.

When I did move, I went directly back inside to the living room and collapsed on the floor. I laid there in silence and then started to cry finally, simply for crying’s sake.

 

 

Elijah didn’t come home that night. I dragged myself off the floor and showered. I started to worry around midnight, and only then just noticed the beeping red dot on the answering machine. He had called my cell-phone, too, and I hadn’t heard it ring. I hit the play button and listened to a confused jumble of noise and Elijah’s voice.

“Where are you, man? I’m stuck at one of the bigi sets with Orcs and it’s just…highly unpleasant.” Playful laugh and mutter of words to someone in the background. “I finished part of the Ungol scene and I’m heading to make-up to get de-hobbited. It’s too late to start back so I’m going to crash here. Look, if you’re with…Christine, just let me know, alright, and I’ll come in quiet-like tomorrow morning.” There was a long, awkward pause. “Sleep tight.” Soft click.

I wondered if he was still awake or if his cell-phone was on him. I toyed with the cordless phone, feeling raw and exhausted, and then dialed without thinking about what I was going to say.

It rang five times before he picked up.

“Sam?”

He said it with the Frodo accent, which brought an immediate, determined smile to my lips. I leaned back into the couch cushions and felt the sadness try to creep back around me.

“Mister Frodo, I’m right tired, I am…I could sleep until the apples turn, if you catch my meaning, sir,” I drawled, improving Sam almost as easily as I spoke normally.

He laughed sleepily and heard him move around a little. 

“Are you alone?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I sighed.

“That doesn’t sound like a happy yeah.”

“I’m feeling a little…um…odd. Tired. Upset. You know. I wish you were here.”

Long pause.

“Lijah?”

“Sorry, go ahead. I was just thinking.”

“Mm. Well, she just left for the night. She’ll be back tomorrow to say goodbye.”

“Oh. Only a week, then,” he said.

I knew he was pretending to not care for my benefit.

“It…it’s done, I guess. That’s what matters.”

“The trip.”

“No, not exactly.”

“You two…?”

“Yeah. We, uh, we didn’t…” I felt my throat getting tight. “We decided it’d be best if we separated. Ah, nothing official, we’ll just sort of go on for a while until the premieres and appearances are done with. After that, well, I guess it depends, but…yeah. It’s done.”

Another long pause.

“I dunno what to say,” he said. I couldn’t read his tone at all. But he must have been trying very hard to control whatever he was feeling.

“Say you’re coming home,” I pressed in my lowest tone of voice, letting the need for comfort flood my chest.

“Shit. Alright. Yeah, okay. I’ve got my car, so,” he said, and I could hear him moving around to get things together.

“Drive safe,” I said.

“Mm,” he hummed into the phone and then hung up.

 

I heard him come in an hour or so later. He must’ve broken every speed limit between here and the studio. I was in the kitchen, forcing myself to eat something. Peter had threatened me to keep on an extra couple pounds; Sam was a typical chubby hobbit, after all. And I hadn’t been eating well as it was.

He appeared in the kitchen doorway at a quick walk, stuck his head in as he stopped, and then drifted at a slower pace over to the table. He pulled a kitchen chair around to my side of the table and sat down next to me, his right arm immediately going around my shoulders. I sighed and forced a brief smile, looking at him sideways.

“You were running red lights again, weren’t you,” I said, my voice subdued but amused.

He laughed and ran his fingers through my hair, lightly petting the back of my neck and the side of my ear. Ah, now, that felt wonderful. He felt wonderful. 

“Just a couple.”

I was silent and we stayed that way. He sat back finally, tossing his keys and cell-phone on the table and running his hands through his hair.

“I feel weird,” I said. “The whole thing is just…I don’t know.”

I knew he had never been in the kind of relationship that came close to marriage, so I didn’t want to press him too much for comfort or advice. He might feel inferior about it. Little did he know that him just being in the same room was all I needed.

“Do you think it was a mistake?” he suggested, trying to sound nonchalant and boyish. “Things might be different once you go home.”

I shook my head. “No. It’s not just being here. It’s…it’s how being here has changed things.”

“As long as you can tell me that it wasn’t because of me,” he said quietly.

“Don’t hold back credit where credit is due, Lijah,” I replied, sliding my hand into his and squeezing. “You’re one of the reasons. One of many. Don’t feel bad about this. What’s happened between us…it’s just one of the experiences that I’ve had in New Zealand that pushed me and her apart.”

He looked beautiful in his corduroy jacket, his hair a mess. His huge eyes lingered on me. Amazing that I’d actually gotten used to them by now. That is, I could stare back without looking away. I think that’s as “used to” Elijah Wood’s eyes anyone could be. Anyone who’d been as close as me, anyway.

“I feel bad, even though I know there’s a lot more to your life than this thing with me,” he said, his lip curling up in a sheepish expression.

I had never been as in love with him—or taken so much notice of the feeling—as I was then, sitting there in the dark kitchen over a half-empty plate of food. I wondered if he felt the same way. And then again, it didn’t matter. What mattered was now: New Zealand, the movie, us being partners on camera and off.

“We’re a team, the two of us. Who knows how long that’ll last? Or where it might take us? It’s something we’ve just got to take a hold of.”

He gave me a funny look. “You sound like Sam.”

I smirked and nodded. “I am Sam.”

“And Sam I am?”

I caught the joke a second later than normal; laughed, shook my head.

 

 

Filming went on as usual for the weeks after Christine left. No one asked me about our visit or pressed me with questions about anything personal. We were too busy getting either in or out of costume and running around to filming locations to really get into anything.

We were doing what Peter had saved for last: the bulk of scenes involving Gollum, Frodo, and Sam on their journey. So Elijah and me had a lot of time together. Most of the scenes were on closed, small sets or blue screens. Andy Serkis was amazing as Gollum, and even in the blue suit he wore, the chemistry between us three on screen was wonderful.

“Alright, let’s go. We’ll try and get this in one more take, Elijah. I know it’s chilly.”

Peter walked by, pat Elijah on the back, and everyone got into position. This was the shot where Frodo fell forward into the water in the Dead Marshes and Gollum pulled him out. We’d take it from the part where Gollum stuck his arm in the water until after he walked off screen. 

Elijah never actually went fully under the water. He got doused by the make-up people to look wet, and crouched out of the view of the shot. It went by quickly and I played my part; Elijah and Andy went through the motions, Elijah spoke the few words of dialogue, and Andy crawled out of view.

“Cut!”

Elijah fell onto the ground and accepted a towel to dry off with. He exchanged a few words of direction with Peter while I sat as I usually did, right next to Elijah just leaned into him. Andy was getting his suit tweaked and the facial sensors on his eyebrows adjusted.

“Cold?” I asked Elijah.

He smiled and leaned over, putting his face on my shoulder, and kissed my neck quickly. 

“Yeah. I think we’ve got the shot, though. After only a dozen or so, that’s some kind of record.”

When Peter came over to talk to us again, we moved just slightly apart. He looked at us for a second, and I could swear that was suspicion on his face.

 

Elijah and I were never alone. On the set, we were surrounded by cast mates and people who did the million tiny things that kept the movie going. Offset, we were followed by our family of cast members, who always wanted us to go somewhere with them. They invaded our flat whenever we had time to clock a nap or change into normal clothes. 

The ideal combination of a day that was not exhausting and an afternoon or evening alone rarely happened. We had moments, of course, but they were frantic and unsatisfying. We could never finish anything we started. I think we were going slowly insane. I was going to suggest that we just get in my car and fucking drive to the nearest hotel without telling anyone where we were going.

And then I realized the flat was silent. It was funny; I expected that there would always be someone around, and it only registered that it might be otherwise after an hour of sitting and staring at the far wall.

I picked up the phone immediately and dialed Elijah’s number.

“Where are you?” I said, by way of greeting.

“Hello to you, too. Upstairs, looking for something. Why?”

“There’s no one here.”

“No shit, really?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll be down in a second.”

I was in the hall waiting for him. I heard the light, galloping thud of his foots on the stairs. I let him in a moment later, and he grinned. He was all out of breath and sleek-looking in a t-shirt and faded jeans. 

He locked the door behind him and closed the distance between us, his arms going around my neck. He backed me against the hallway wall and touched our noses together, hugging me tight.

“Thank God,” he breathed.

Excitement tingled and overwhelmed me almost immediately; I’d waited weeks to have this again. And for once, I wasn’t too tired to act on that. The urgency seized my limbs and made me want to rush. But, God, he was so fantastically pretty, and I didn’t want this to be over in an hour.

I ran my hands over his shoulders and up his neck, holding him lightly like that, and kissed him softly; once, then twice, then a third time and my lips parted, my tongue traced the soft outlines of his mouth. I could feel his stomach catch with breath. His pulse started to beat differently as we went on kissing. His hands were all over my back and sides.

It was nothing like the first time, when I felt almost angry, almost wildly desperate. This was a slower kind of desperation; the sweet kind, the kind you wallow in until you can’t stand it.

We back-peddled and steered each other blindly towards the bedroom. I slid my fingertips under his t-shirt and lifted it over his head and he did the same to me. By the time we laid down, I was kissing his neck and ears and throat with painful focus, and without hesitation or nervousness, my hands went to the button on his jeans.

“Hey, hey…you’re new at this, right?” he asked, holding my wrist and smiling.

I settled half on top of him and half on the bed, smiling, and running my free hand over his arms and chest and stomach, loving endlessly the softness of his skin. He smelled like skin and hotel soap and deodorant. I barely heard the question.

“Mm? Yeah. So? I believe we have the same parts, Lijah,” I trailed off, grinning and nibbling his earlobe.

He quirked a brow, laid back against the pillows, bunched up his mouth in a playfully thoughtful way and then nodded. His bottom lip dropped a little when I moved to suck on his nipples, and a lovely pink flush went across his cheeks.

Truth be told, though we had the same parts, I was a little worried I’d fuck it up. I hadn’t even taken into account the fact that I might not like the taste of semen or that, in the long-term thought of things, anal sex might not be fun. I guess we didn’t have to do anything I didn’t like. Besides, I was powerfully excited, and looking forward to getting his pants off, so that counted for something, I reckoned.

Weird that I was going to do this first, I thought, as I undid his jeans and sat back to tug them off his legs. He surely wasn’t going to complain. I looked at him. He was already ready, eyes half-closed, relaxed, and quite eager. The age difference between us touched me again. Like any guy in his early twenties was going to turn down a blowjob. I almost smirked.

I tried to conjure up in my head all the times I’d gotten a blowjob. I summoned porn in my head. Eh, well, porn might have been a bit less helpful. Finally I decided that winging it was the only way it was going to get done. But I’d sure as hell torture him first.

I lay down behind him and gathered his back to my front. I touched him that way for a while, my lips all over his neck and ears and shoulders. I loved kissing his shoulders. They were so different from a woman’s. I loved the way they rose and spread at a sharper angle. My fingers pinched and rubbed his nipples until they were hard. I rubbed his stomach, his hips, danced my fingers around his thighs.

I gave in to the swollen length of his cock only when he started to shift around anxiously. Touching him was absolutely nothing like touching myself; he was a different size and shape, just a little smaller than I was. I wrapped my hand around him. The way of holding and stroking was easy enough. No doubt I knew how to do that. I loved feeling his slight movements into my palm as I stroked his cock. I could feel the change in his breathing this way. He was hot, soft, and hard all at once. I watched his profile, his lips parting and coming together with uneven breathing. His eyelids and those gorgeous eyelashes of his fluttered.

His skin grew hot and I could feel the muscles of his legs tensing and relaxing. I wanted to move and try out this blowjob thing, so I went to take off my hand, he jerked reflexively and looked back at me.

“God, don’t stop,” he said, sounding slightly surprised.

Shit. Was there some handjob to blowjob etiquette I had never been cued in on?

I must’ve looked really stupid when I smiled and turned beet-red and said, “I was uh…going to…you know…”

He didn’t get it at first. When he did, his eyes widened. “Oh. Oh, shit. Sorry. I didn’t think you’d want to. Or, you know, like, the first time, and all—”

Just to see what it would do, I gave him a long squeeze before he finished talking. He shuddered and his eyes kind of rolled back. I laughed and leaned in, kissing his mouth. He kissed back and I could feel the heat in his face.

“Would it be weird if you didn’t?”

“Hm?”

“Do what you were planning on.”

“Nooo, I guess not. Why not, thought?”

“This is gonna sound dumb. I’ve always wanted to do this in this position.”

I raised an eyebrow, while dragging my fingers all around the flat of his pelvis. I guessed I was wrong about the blowjob thing, then. Hm. Surprising.

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah. You’ve got great hands,” he said, rubbing his nose up next to mine.

My cock pulsed and pressed into the fabric of the sweatpants I wore. Damn. Everything he said had a sexual effect on me, it seemed.

He sighed dreamily as I went on tugging and working him, laying his head back on the pillow. 

“Women never do it this way,” he exhaled shakily. “Never hold you from behind, fully, and get you off that way. It’s—mmm…yeah, like that.”

I had switched to the head a little, squeezing and jerking just the first inch or two. I knew I liked that, and it was cool that he liked it, too.

I was beginning to see why he enjoyed this position. We were tightly held together, my arm around him, touching him, and his back pressed all the way down my front. I could feel his pulse and his breathing and watch the tiny changes in his face. I watched his cock disappear between my fingers, harder and more flushed red at the tip with every stroke. It was almost hypnotic, like jerking yourself off and only seeing and feeling the external reactions.

As he got closer, he started to make tiny noises. It was weird, hearing them; they were the most private noises I’d ever heard him make. Also strange because I didn’t make noises myself, really, during sex. These weren’t extravagant or fake; they were just formed, more fully realized breaths with a desperate and pleasured quality that made them sexy as all get-out to me. His slight rocking of his hips in combination with the small sounds were doing hellish things to my own state of arousal.

Besides that, the room was all silence. It was blazing hot between us. I could hear a car drive past outside. Time seemed to stand still. His pulse was pounding steadily at the hollow of his throat. I kissed his neck slowly when I could remember to do it. I kept on jerking him like I did myself, and found that he liked when I squeezed the head of his cock between strokes.

A little bit of pre-ejaculate leaked from him and he shuddered. I let it get on my hand and it made the stroking easier, which seemed to send up the tension in his body. I made a quick mental note to grab the lubricant from my gym bag before we did this next time.

“Sean,” he whispered urgently. And then, in an undertone: “Shit.”

His hand and arm was laid over mine, his fingers desperately stroking and gripping my wrist in pure reflex. It would skim up and down the length of my forearm occasionally. He kept pushing his ass back into my crotch, and I tried to not pay attention to it, though I was beyond hard and nothing but two layers of cotton separated us.

His fingers on my wrist tightened. I kissed his neck slowly. I loved kissing up into his hairline, loved the combination of slightly heat-dampened scalp and soft, fragrant hair under my lips. And while this was slow and careful, it didn’t seem to lack any of the intensity of the first encounter. 

He came without ceremony; shuddered and gave a strangled sound low in his throat. Instinctively I went faster, squeezed harder, covered the entire top half of his cock with my fist and pumped firmly. He came over my hand and onto the blankets in four or five pulses. His breathing mixed in with half-formed incoherent words.

When I stopped, feeling him start to go soft again, he rolled onto his back, his belly rising and falling with quickened breath. He put his arms around my neck and pulled me down and kissed me deeply. When we pulled apart, he looked recovered, and stared down at our mess. 

“There’s a towel on the floor,” he said, motioning to my side. I had left it there after my shower before. Typical of him to notice something like that.

I cleaned off my hand and his belly and then the bed, leaving the towel over the stained spots.

We started kissing again. I fancied I could feel the lack of tension in him. He was all grins and satiation as he wrapped his leg around my hip and drew me close. I didn’t care, frankly, what he did to get me off, because anything he did would be quite effective. I had been tempted to rub back into him while I was touching him, so I was already worked up.

“Have a fantasy about anything in particular past this point?” I murmured playfully into his neck. 

He laughed and squeezed the inside of my thigh. “How’d you guess?”

“You’re so predictable, man,” I chuckled.

“Shaddup and roll over.”

I laughed, rolling onto my back, and he shifted on top of me, his hands digging into the bed on either side of my shoulders. “You’re sweet in bed, too.”

“Mmm,” he replied, while touching the center of my chest with a deep, open-mouthed kiss. 

Seeing him like that—over me, messy and flushed, with his head hanging low on his shoulders and his legs spread out against mine—was a nice picture indeed. And there were the eyes again, those hugely blue eyes, that had caught my soul from the second I saw them.

He repeated a good deal of my performance; kissed over my nipples, bringing that odd shivery and almost pinching feeling that was so pleasing. He squeezed my shoulders and my arms with caresses. He was more eager than I was, as if he’d traveled this road before, so to speak, and soon enough his hands were below my belt.

He wrapped his fingers around the bulge at the front of my sweatpants and squeezed and manipulated me until I thought I would explode. I was quicker to squirm, apparently, than he was, and he found it amusing.

I felt a stirring in my lower stomach that was something like anticipation. I was just a little self conscious; I wasn’t as slender as I normally was, due to the role I played, and I knew guys (regardless of orientation) had different thoughts about penis size and such.

But it wasn’t like that, when he did finally undo the zipper on my jeans and wrap his boyish hands around me. I forgot to be nervous.

And God, it was heaven, lying there under his attention. I knew he was going slowly on purpose, but there was no lack of anything I might have expected because of it. 

I liked the difference in our coloring; liked that his fingernails were cut the way they were. It all came together in one big mess of sensory pleasure, really. My eyes rolled back in my head and drifted shut as he held my cock and worked it with this funny up and down motion that also involved the side to side swiveling of his wrist. Shit, that felt good.

And when he lowered his mouth and licked once around the tip of my cock, my hips jumped under him, and I grew instantly more hot. I hadn’t gotten a blowjob in forever, it seemed, and I knew I wouldn’t last long. He was too good at it. He was fearless in trying to get the whole thing between his lips. He didn’t hesitate to bob as hard and fast as he could. He wasn’t embarrassed at all to stop, work me with his hand for a few seconds and watch my face while he did so.

A lot of women I’d been with thought that just lips and tongue were enough to make a guy come during a blowjob. It wasn’t, really. Wasn’t hard enough to bring the orgasm up unless it had been going on forever. And he didn’t even show a hint of that, and I liked it, that he was straightforward and firm.

Soon enough I was edging closer to finishing, my hips doing tiny rolls up into his mouth. He would hold still for long seconds, and let me push myself around in his mouth, and the sight of that was fucking sexy.

But in the end he let me stay between his lips and used the inside of his fist, stroking me fast and full from base to tip; that did the trick. I put a hand on his shoulder, rubbed his jaw in a kind of warning. Only remembered just then that it wasn’t polite to come in someone’s mouth without asking. But he wasn’t going to stop. The intensity and speed increased.

I think I said his name, but I’m not sure, and before I knew it my balls constricted and I was coming between his lips. I could see the white pearly fluid pool around his tongue, God, and that was just ridiculously erotic. I marveled at how he swallowed without hesitation. He trailed his tongue down the underside of my cock after I’d finished coming. 

I stroked my hand up into his hair and stopped that only when he moved to lie at my side. And I proved myself wrong: it was possible to feel closer to him. Before this I thought I could never have a better relationship with him. Being intimate made it better. And the orgasm had been fantastic.

We snuggled and kissed afterwards, then paused to get the blankets around us. It wasn’t too late in the evening, but I was drained. I knew we had a call early tomorrow as usual.

Just as we were falling asleep, he spoke in a half-laughing, half-surprised tone in my ear:

“I think I’ve fallen for you, Sean.”

 

From that night until the end of shooting, we lived as a couple. The weeks blurred into months. The shooting schedule waxed and waned in intensity and demand. And the more I that wished for the end of the year to not come, the faster it raced to meet us.

When the actual filming was done, and after that all the voice-overs and studio recording needed was finished, the parties started. Ten times the insanity of all the parties during the year combined they were, those parties, and it didn’t take much of an excuse to hold one.

Elijah and me stuck pretty close together through this time, but didn’t so much mind our crowd of friends anymore. We wanted to enjoy their company as much as possible until the very end. Everyone was hastily exchanging phone numbers, addresses, and schedules. All our agents and reps had been in contact with us about promotions and premieres for weeks already; and these calls were just confirmations of previously discussed arrangements.

There had been a particularly emotional night when Peter pulled just the two of us aside and gave (what we called later), his “final word.”

“Thank you. I guess that’s all I can say. Thank you. You have no idea how much this project has been brought home by the two of you. I had waited my entire life to meet Frodo and Samwise and I know for sure now that I don’t have to look any further.”

He went on for much longer than that, of course. He kept stopping and sucking his lips and swallowing hard. By the time he released us to the party that was going on, we were tearing up. We shared a commiserating, happy laugh over it.

No one could appreciate his words more than we could. And we weren’t alone; we saw all the other cast members talking quietly with Peter at one point or another over the course of the night. I think he spoke to Viggo the longest; they sat in a shadowed corner of the room and I could see Viggo shedding tears of silent emotion.

I suppose it was one of the last nights we were all to be in New Zealand. Last minute checks were being run. Flights were confirmed. The machine that was the making of the Lord of the Rings was slowly grinding to a stop.

There was no lack of tears that night. We were all simultaneously exhausted, overjoyed, and in awe of our time together. I don’t think I’ve hugged as many people with as much emotion as I did. We stopped caring about what it might look like to the press or anyone. I would just go up to someone and hold him or her for minutes on end and we’d talk quietly like that. Thank yous, love yous—it all poured out.

And at the end of the night, Elijah and I came back together. We didn’t have to say anything to experience the moment. We curled up together on the first empty couch we could find and held each other with no censor, watching the crowd as lovingly as everyone did.

“I can’t believe it’s over,” he said in a low voice against my ear.

I tightened my arm around him. “If you think about it, it’s just started. Can you imagine the time we’ve got ahead? Four years of promotion and lord knows how much more time after that. The best part is going to be seeing the fans’ reactions.”

“It was so much pressure,” he said, “playing Frodo. Like…imitating a historical figure that everyone knows a lot about. I hope I don’t get lynched.”

I laughed and pressed my face into his hair. “It’ll never happened.”

He smiled and stared at me, putting on that tender smile that always gets to people.

“I love you.”

I blinked and looked at him first from the corner of my eye and then directly.

“I love you, too, Elijah,” I said slowly, feeling stupid, as most people in love feel when they say those words for the first time. They never come out as dramatic as you want them to. But it was enough.

 

A week later we sat in first class on a flight back to Los Angeles. I was relieved and excited to have Elijah next to me. I knew we’d be arriving together. It would be only a short time before we could start seeing each other normally. 

I had spoken with Christine and she assured me that I was welcome at home and that we would work something out. Elijah, as usual, had his place behind his mother’s house. 

It felt odd to wear normal clothes on a daily basis. It would feel weird not to wake up with Elijah every morning and sit through hours of make-up. And what might take the longest to get used to was, obviously, not waking up in New Zealand. I didn’t fully realize how much of a cast member the country had become until I watched it disappear under the clouds that shrouded our plane.

But in the aftermath, it was all sweet memory. I had him with me; between the two of us, not a moment of those past eighteen months would be forgotten.

When the plane landed in Los Angeles, we had to go our separate ways, at least for a few days. I had no doubt we’d be on our cell-phones soon enough. He hugged me tightly for a long time and pulled back slowly, squeezing my forearms.

“Call me when you get in,” he said.

I nodded and smiled. “I’ll probably call before that.”

“Good. This way you can be the obsessive, clingy one and no one will notice I had the same intention.”

I smirked and gave him a look. We hugged again, and then drifted apart, wanting to kiss but not thinking it was a good idea. We might’ve gotten away with it—high-collared jackets and sunglasses as usual when in public like this. But it was fine to just say goodbye.

We got maybe fifty paces apart before I heard him call out.

“Hey, Sam!” He grinned. “Don’t go getting lost, now.”

I back-peddled, smirking at him. “I don’t mean to, Mister Frodo. I don’t mean to.”


End file.
